Francesco Crispi

Francesco Crispi (4 October 1818-12 August 1901) was Prime Minister of Italy from 29 July 1887 to 6 February 1891 (succeeding Agostino Depretis and preceding Antonio Starabba) and again from 15 December 1893 to 10 March 1896 (succeeding Giovanni Giolitti and preceding Antonio Starabba). Born to an Arbëreshë in the Two Sicilies, he was nominally a liberal politician, but he later became a strongman and an ally of Otto von Bismarck of Prussia. Crispi was one of Benito Mussolini's idols, and he influenced the doctrine of fascism.

Political activism
Francesco Crispi was born in Ribera, Two Sicilies to an Arbëreshë family; his grandfather was an Orthodox Christian priest, and Italian was his third language. In 1838, he founded his own newspaper, L'Oreteo, and he wrote about the huge damage caused by the Catholic church's immense wealth, the need to educate poor people, and the need for all citizens (including women) to be equal before the law. In 1845, he became a judge in Naples, and he became known for his liberal and revolutionary ideas. He was one of the leaders of the Sicilian Revolution of 1848, and he fled to Malta after he was not granted amnesty. Crispi moved to Turin, Sardinia-Piedmont a year later, and he became a friend of the Italian nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini. In 1858, he was expelled for plotting to assassinate Napoleon III as a co-conspirator of Felice Orsini, and he later assisted Giuseppe Garibaldi and the Redshirts with their invasion of southern Italy.

Italian politics
In 1861, Crispi was elected to the Parliament as a member of the liberal Sinistra Liberale party, serving as the deputy from Castelveltrano for all successive legislatures until the end of his life. As President of the Chamber of Deputies, he established friendly relations with the United Kingdom, France, and the German Empire, and he also opposed the alliance of the Sinistra Liberale party with the conservative Destra Liberale party, as he supported a two-party system. He served as Minister of the Interior as a dissident liberal on many occasions, and he was elected Prime Minister in 1887, the first southern Italian to hold the office. He strengthened the role of the Prime Minister, despite opposition from both the right and left, and he became a strongman in the fashion of Otto von Bismarck. Crispi gained the support of the left by affirming the right to strike and abolishing the death penalty in 1889, and he also reformed mayoral appointments; electors would choose mayors, not the government. In 1893, he was accused of involvement with a banking scandal, but he would remain Prime Minister, and he suppressed Sicilian socialist workers' strikes from 1889 to 1894, leading to increased emigration (especially to the United States). Crispi survived a 16 June 1894 anarchist assassination attempt, and he passed a July 1894 anti-anarchist and anti-socialist law that suppressed the two ideologies. He would make more and more enemies as he strengthened his own power and fought against other ideologies, and an embezzlement investigation was opened. After the Battle of Adowa, a catastrophic defeat at the hands of Ethiopia, Crispi resigned as Prime Minister, and he died in Naples in 1901 at the age of 82.